Volume 2, No. 23. December 13, 2002
Naming
right
The shareholders
had reason for concern. It was their name on the line. Literally.
This week, Silver Dollar City, Inc., changed its name to Herschend Family Entertainment
Corporation (see Extra!
Extra!), a nomenclature using the revered name of the family that founded
the Silver Dollar City Theme Park in Branson, Missouri, in 1960 and has continued
to run the park and parent company as an industry exemplar.
The Herschend family, who comprise the shareholders, had been pondering the
corporate name change for several years, said company President and CEO Mel
Bilbo. The actual decision had been “in the works for a few months,”
he said. A sticking point was publicizing the family name like that.
“I was privy to listening to most of the family discuss this, 20 or 30
of them in the room, three generations now,” Bilbo said. “There were
some who were reluctant, wondering if it seemed too egotistical or that it would
be flaunting themselves.” Upon consulting the company’s board of directors,
the majority of which are not members of the family, “everyone was convinced,
and the decision was unanimous.”
With good reason. As Bilbo pointed out, “within the industry there’s
a lot of equity” in the Herschend name, beginning with Silver Dollar City
founders Mary and Hugo and continuing today with Peter and Jack. The Herschend
name is synonymous with the SDC corporation and all the values the latter represents.
Listen to Dolly Parton talk about the firm with which she partners in ownership
and operation of Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, and she always refers
to “The Herschends,” never Silver Dollar City, Inc.
Ah, that’s the rub. As a corporation, the name “Herschend” carries
more value than does “Silver Dollar City.” “Unless you are in
the center of the country or within the industry, (Silver Dollar City) doesn’t
tell you who we are,” Bilbo said. That was becoming a growing problem for
a company with entertainment properties and partnerships in Tennessee, South
Carolina, Georgia, Maryland and Florida, as well as around Branson, ranging
from a White Water to Dixie Stampedes. It is also a company that is, as the
name-change portends, continuing a steady course of expansion. Most of Herschend’s
properties are not Silver Dollar Cities redux but themed venues of their own
styling, albeit with the same operational philosophy and family focus of the
original.
Which is why Bilbo is equally pleased with the new name’s middle words:
Family Entertainment. “We’re letting folks know that we are giving
it a family seal of approval,” he said. There’s a pun in that statement:
the seal of approval comes from a family known to be dedicated to delivering
the goods to families.
Gardens
pickings
Another venerable
industry institution is in the thick of swirling rumors of expansion, but is
none too keen about being so. Cypress Gardens near Winter Haven, Florida, is
planning to add a new Natural Structures enclosed tube slide to its 2-year-old
water park and is expanding its concert series for 2003. These are not the expansion
plans making headlines around Central Florida, however.
Instead, the media has focused on the potential, stated by the owners, that
some of the 66-year-old park’s unused property might be used for residential
development. The rumors began when well-known land developer Larry Maxwell purchased
an equity interest in the park in October 2001. Broached about the potential
of turning the park into a real estate gold mine, Cypress Gardens CEO Bill Reynolds
did not deny the possibility, and in fact noted that the owners would soon begin
exploring such options.
Suddenly, Cypress Gardens entered the endangered species list in the minds of
Central Floridians, much to its own chagrin. “Our first love is Cypress
Gardens,” said Will Reynolds, Bill's son and the park’s director who
heads up the park’s marketing efforts. “I don’t want this information
construed the wrong way. We’re trying to focus on tourism. We’re trying
to get tourism through our doors, not focus on land development.”
With tourism in Central Florida sagging the past two years—Will Reynolds
said Cypress Gardens attendance was down 12 percent, but “we’re doing
pretty decent, better than other businesses, in light of what has happened the
last year and a half,”—the park’s owners simply want a ready
option should the slide continue. With the park utilizing only 90 acres, that
leaves 130 acres of prime Florida real estate available for whatever use.
“We want to make sure we have a plan in the future,” Will Reynolds
said. “I’m not telling you we’re going to build. I’m not
telling you we’re not going to build. We don’t know yet. We’re
just now starting to wake up and say, ‘What are some of our options?’
Tourism is tough. We’re trying to make sure we don’t put all our eggs
in one basket.”
Of one thing he is certain. Even if some of those eggs eventually move to another
basket, the garden spot with its boat rides, Southern Belles, ski show, growing
waterpark and new entertainment series will continue to carry the larger load
for many years to come.
Corbiére,
left, and Grévin & Cie CEO Olivier de Bosredon added luster to Faujanet’s
medalceremony.Photo
courtesy of Grévin & Cie.
Meriting attention
When someone pins
a medal on your chest, you know beyond a shadow of a doubt your efforts have
not gone unnoticed. When Sylvie Faujanet, company secretary of Grévin
& Cie and president of France’s Syndicat National des Espaces de Loisirs,
d’Attractions et Culturels (SNELAC, the trade association of amusement
parks, attractions and museums), received the Ordre National du Mérite
in October, an entire industry was recognized for its importance in French culture.
The National Order of Merit, honoring significant contributions to community,
carries the weight of France’s other high honors, the Legion of Honor and
the Arts and Letters award. France’s President Jacques Chirac awarded Faujanet
the medal on the recommendation of the minister of tourism. “I would hate
to sound pretentious, but it was my impression that the minister of tourism
was wishing to express the greater social posture of our industry relative to
other tourism-related industries in France,” Faujanet said.
She has been a pivotal figure in achieving that stature for the industry in
her country. She joined the staff of Parc Asterix in 1988 and helped bring that
venue, France’s first theme park, to fruition. Being the first was not
enough for the Asterix team; setting a high standard for all other parks to
follow was equally important, and Faujanet, director of human resources, was
essential to that goal, a goal she has stoutly pursued as her responsibilities
grew within Parc Asterix and the park’s parent company, Grévin &
Cie.
That likewise was the thrust of her work with SNELAC, “training the young
and sometimes not-so-young people who are learning the basics of this industry,”
she said. “It’s important for the industry to grow its expertise and
accumulate its skills.” That goal took on political ramifications when
SNELAC was able to get labor laws extended to workers within the amusement industry.
SNELAC itself gained greater stature as Faujanet led a membership drive beyond
theme parks to include other leisure facilities such as privately run zoos,
castles, nature parks and museums.
During the award ceremony at the Grévin Wax Museum in Paris when, in
keeping with the tradition of the award, previous Mérite winner and Forest
Hill CEO Michel Corbiére presented Faujanet the medal, the honored but
humble recipient turned her speech toward her favorite subject: giving youths
the tools to succeed. “Have faith in life,” she told the assembly
of family members, government officials, Grévin colleagues and leisure
industry leaders. “Be attentive to the signs life will send you. And life
will give a lot back.”
“My real purpose was to wink the eye and send a friendly message to my
younger relatives who were standing in the room,” Faujanet said. “I
simply wanted to tell them never to lose courage and always be on the lookout
for opportunities life may bring to them. When you operate a theme park, you
have a lot of young people working there, and it’s important to give them
direction early on in their careers and to give them self-confidence to take
whatever the first steps in their careers might be and whatever first turn their
lives might take.”
Words of wisdom from a woman of Merit.
A
turn of events
A fledgling organization
that loses its leader normally is an organization on the verge of collapse.
For the International Association of Haunted Attractions, the unexpected resignation
of its president Bob Turner and the subsequent elevation of Vice President Liz
Foral during the association’s semiannual Board of Directors meeting at
the IAAPA Convention and Trade Show last month represents an organization that
has matured into a viable and lasting trade association.
Turner resigned as president of the 5-year-old IAHA nine months after his election
(THE LOOP March 22, 2002)
because of struggles with his business, Turner Enterprise Inc., which runs Haunted
Hydro Dark Attraction Park in Fremont, Ohio. “Due to 9-11, a fire, and
extreme weather, three of our five business activities in the last year and
a half have lost revenue,” he wrote to the IAHA membership. “I have
been forced to curtail all outside business functions.” Turner still plans
to attend IAHA's annual meeting at the Transworld show in Chicago in March where
he will run his Crazy Bob Talk-Back seminar and host the association’s
annual auction.
The work he had been doing as president is now in the willing hands of Foral,
half owner of Mystery Manor in Omaha, Nebraska, who had worked closely with
Turner in his IAHA duties. “We made quite a nice team together because
we had the same philosophy,” she said. She wants to continue his work of
promoting educational seminars around the country and strengthening the committee
structure within the association. She also plans to tackle issues concerning
building codes, firming up membership and setting the agenda for March’s
Transworld seminars. At that annual meeting, she plans to run for re-election.
With former IAHA president D'Ann Dagen, owner of La-De-Da Productions in Fort
Worth, Texas, providing administrative support for the association and a board
confident in the elected leadership, the transition from Turner to Foral created
nary a blip in the association’s functioning. “That we have these
things in place, yeah, that really streamlines things,” Foral said. “I
think we’re definitely on our way.”
She also was coming off an IAAPA where the IAHA booth hosted several officials
from theme parks seeking the association’s expertise. “They are coming
to us for that education. It was absolutely our pleasure to provide that education.”
Foral may believe IAHA is “on their way,” but in many respects—and
in terms of respect—they have arrived.
Training
days
The New England
Association of Amusement Parks & Attractions (NEAAPA) are just being good
neighbors. The trade association has scheduled its 2003 winter training series
in January and are offering all four sessions to members of the Pennsylvania
Amusement Parks Association and the New Jersey Amusement Association at the
NEAAPA member rate of $50 per session, $150 for all four (nonmember rates are
$75 and $225).
The training sessions are full-day events, beginning with John Paul Scott, a
former Disney Imagineer and now owner of Create Access architectural firm, leading
a program on the Americans with Disabilities Act and Access Board Regulations,
January 8 at Canobie Lake Park in Salem, New Hampshire. The Food Service and
FEC roundtables are January 16 at Lake Compounce in Bristol, Connecticut. The
next day Lake Compounce also hosts the Rides and Security roundtables, and on
January 29 Canobie hosts the Games and Retail roundtables.
To sign up for any of these sessions, call 860-620-9117, e-mail neaapa2@aol.com,
or visit www.neaapa.com.
Kids dig dinosaurs, and Miami Metrozoo hopes they'll dig birds, too. Photo courtesy of Miami Metrozoo.
Fossil
fuels
Did birds descend
from dinosaurs? At the Miami Metrozoo in Florida, they will.
The American Bankers Family Aviary The Wings of Asia, a 2.6-acre (1-hectare)
free-flight aviary that will eventually house about 300 birds comprising 70
exotic species, is scheduled to open in April 2003, and the zoo enlisted the
help of some heavy hitters to market the new attraction: a mamenchisaurus, a
giganotosaurus, a triceratops and a T-rex, among others. The dinosaurs are part
of a traveling exhibit called “The Dinosaurs of Jurassic Park: The Life
and Death of Dinosaurs” which combines sculptures and scenes from the Steven
Spielberg film, "Jurassic Park: The Lost World," with actual dinosaur
artifacts and fossil casts.
Don Lessem, president of Dinosaur Productions, created the exhibit with Universal
Studios and Amblin/Dreamworks Entertainment donating all their royalties to
Lessem’s Jurassic Foundation, which finances field work by paleontologists.
The exhibit has been touring mostly science centers and natural history museums
around the United States. After the Miami Metrozoo stint ends January 3 it is
heading for Taiwan.
The Metrozoo booked the exhibit expressly as a prelude to the aviary’s
opening. “Our story line for the aviary is that birds are living dinosaurs,”
said Sherrie Avery, director of public relations for the Zoological Society
of Florida. The aviary will include a field research center plus fossils and
interactive displays tracing how birds could be descended from dinosaurs. Children
will be able to dig for dinosaur bones in a re-creation of a fossil excavation
pit, which likely will be as big a hit in the aviary as a similar pit in the
Jurassic Park exhibit has been this fall.
As big as the aviary will be, none of its species will approach the stature
of the statues at Jurassic Park, like the 72-foot-long, 24-foot-high (22-meter-long,
seven-meter-high) Mamenchisaurus, and a 45-foot-long, 15-foot-tall (14-meter-long,
4.5-meter-tall) Giganotosaurus, a larger version of Tyrannosaurus rex and likely
the largest meat-eating dinosaur ever discovered. In addition to these statues,
the exhibit contains fossil casts of a pteranadon, bellusaurus and stegoceras
plus four tableaux lifted from the Hollywood movie featuring a baby stegosaurus
in a field camp, velociraptors and, of course, the T-rex.
Opened September 13 and included in a regular Metrozoo admission, The Dinosaurs
of Jurassic Park has proved a most effective preview to the aviary, Avery said.
“The turnout has been absolutely incredible,” she said, starting with
the opening weekend members’ night which attracted 2,500 members despite
a rainstorm. “It poured, poured, poured rain, and they came in the driving
rain,” Avery said. “It goes to show you what people will do for dinosaurs.”
The British couple raced to the alter at Orlando's Fun Spot go-kart track. Photo courtesy of Fun Spot Action Park.
Fast
track to marriage
Checklist of things to do in one week: Check—conduct a seminar at the IAAPA
Convention and Trade Show; Check—pick up a Brass Ring award for your radio
commercial; Check—launch a licensing arm of your business; Check—host
a manufacturer reception; Check—stage the first-ever go-kart wedding.
To say Fun Spot Action Park in Orlando, Florida, had an eventful week in November
is to say the Shuttle launch is a big jet taking off. The International Drive
venue with the multilevel wood go-kart tracks—a concept patented by owner
John Arie that he started licensing via the Shaller Enjuneering booth at the
trade show—was already gearing up for a busy IAAPA when two fans from Great
Britain showed up requesting that the park host their matrimonial nuptials.
Not wanting to look a wedding gift horse in the mouth, Fun Spot agreed to the
unusual November 25 ceremony uniting Martin Smith, 18, of Dundee Scotland and
Lynda Kennerly, 20. of Warrington, England. How unusual? Steve Hix, director
of the International Recreational Go Kart Association, does not recall any other
such go-kart wedding.
“They were willing to allow us to give it to them for free and provide
a free reception for publicity sake,” said Mark Brisson, Fun Spot’s
marketing director. “So we were responsible for securing the music, the
flowers, the veil and the ‘Just Married’ sign. The groom was more
interested in apparel more appropriate for go-kart riding than getting married.”
Fun Spot also provided the minister, Juan Garnica, an ordained pastor at the
Church in the Son in Orlando and part-time photographer at Fun Spot. Garnica
was the catalyst for the wedding. Smith and Kennerly visited Fun Spot on a vacation
a year ago and met Garnica, learning then that he is a minister. When they returned
with Smith’s family (his mother, sister, brother, and his mother’s
boyfriend) this year, they asked him to marry them. “He said, ‘Where
do you want to get married?’ and they said they wanted to get married in
the park, and that got the ball rolling,’” Brisson said.
For the ceremony, the groom’s mother and the bride drove a kart around
the track and hid in one of the helixes. When the “Wedding March”
started playing over the park’s loudspeaker, the mother drove the bride
down the helix and into the loading area, parking alongside the groom. A Fun
Spot employee then turned off their engine so the couple could hear Garnica
do the ceremony. During the nuptials, the bride transferred to the groom’s
cart, and after they kissed at the conclusion of the vows they drove off around
the track with the ‘Just Married’ sign and trailing paper cups attached
to the kart.
For the reception the park donated pizza and soda, and the wedding party toasted
with Sierra Mist rather than champagne “because we don’t believe in
drinking and driving with go-karts,” Brisson said. The event received extensive
coverage on the local CBS and NBC television affiliates, with the latter broadcasting
across the country. “We’ve gotten phone calls from New York and Indiana
saying they saw the go-kart wedding,” Brisson said. Still, the park does
not plan to pedal more such events. “We’re not trying to tap that
market, no,” he said.
Nevertheless, Fun Spot would do it again. “It was a lot of fun,” Brisson
said. “We’re glad we did it, and we’d do it again in a heartbeat.
The fact it came on the heals of IAAPA was hard.”
Hofer's sun catchers give nonprofit groups a helping hand. Photo courtesy of www.nicegift.org.
Return
visit
The marketing
director of Funtasticks and Fiddlesticks Family Fun Parks in Arizona, who
espoused community service as an effective marketing and employee retention
tool for cash-strapped venues (THE
LOOP November 8, 2002), is carrying her sense of charitable commitment into
a sideline business. Jill Hofer makes stained glass sun catchers and ornaments
that she sells on her web site, www.nicegift.org.
Part of the proceeds of every item she sells is earmarked for local charities.
Thanks to Hofer’s own standing in the community and among the media because
of her activities at the family entertainment centers, two local television
stations have ordered five dozen customized ornaments from her to send as gifts
to corporate clients, gifts that, in turn, will help the local Boys and Girls
Club purchase a television set.
Tell
it on the Mountain
It already calls itself Knott’s Merry Farm in promotional material, an
obvious pun not only on the Buena Park, California, theme park’s Berry
name but also on its famous October incarnation as Knott’s Scary Farm.
This year, however, Knott’s Berry Farm has taken a significant first step
toward creating a signature Christmas seasonal event along the line of Halloween
Haunt by re-theming its Timber Mountain Log Ride as an Elf Mountain
Christmas.
“It’s silly that this hasn’t been done in the past,” said
Charles Bradshaw, the park’s director of entertainment. “We’ve
basically taken the ride as it is and just decorated it with elves.” The
ride’s faux mountain has about four dozen pine trees, so Bradshaw’s
crew decorated those as Christmas trees and built elves for such scenes as a
North Pole toy workshop, the reindeer stables, the mail room and a caroling
scene. The ride also has a soundtrack of elves singing “Jingle Bells.”
Some of the elves are animated, and next year many more will be, Bradshaw said.
The park already had a Christmas tradition that included strolling carolers
and seasonal performances in its theaters, including the popular 30-minute “Christmas
Carol” and the “It’s Christmas, Snoopy” ice show. Nevertheless,
this is the first time Knott’s has remade one of its rides into a Christmas
theme, a park-wide practice for Haunts. Indeed, when the 30th Annual Halloween
Haunt concluded November 2, Bradshaw switched the log ride from its Red Moon
Rising theme featuring werewolves to the North Pole community featuring
elves.
“As we did the log ride, it really turned us on,” Bradshaw said. “The
first year on anything is always iffy; you’re never quite there. But this
came out so beautifully. It’s a great credit to the design staff.”
And it has Bradshaw wanting to do more. “We do a wonderful Christmas now,
with a beautiful ice show, a lot of decorations, a Christmas craft festival
and lots of lights through Ghost Town and Camp Snoopy, but my dream is to do
as nice a job with Christmas and move it into the rest of the park as we do
with Halloween Haunt.”
He admitted that Haunt, with its mazes and roaming monsters, is better suited
as a stand-alone event (it currently runs as a separate admission event in the
evenings) with high production values, whereas Christmas is “more of a
decor experience” that would be seen merely as value added for guests.
But what’s to say that with more light displays, varying strolling talent
and, particularly, re-themed rides—“There are a few that will lend
themselves nicely,” Bradshaw said: “the mine ride I see coming up”—Knott’s
Merry Farm couldn’t become the institution it’s Scary counterpart
has attained.
“We’ll probably never put as much resources into Christmas as we do
for Haunt,” Bradshaw said. “But I would still like to bring Christmas
to a higher level. And this park lends itself so well to doing that.”
Knott's for tots
Part of the seasonal celebration at Knott’s Berry Farm is the annual U.S.
Marine Corps Reserves Toys for Tots drive the park hosts in conjunction with
the local NBC-TV affiliate, Hot 92 radio, Telemundo Television and Public Storage
Systems. In this the fifth year the park has participated, Knott’s Berry
Farm was offering free admission to anybody bringing a new toy of $10 value
or more to be donated last weekend and this weekend.
The promotion has taken on a life of its own and spawned some offshoot gift-giving
programs. One co-op of small retail stores brought in more than 1,400 toys in
return for 80 tickets, which the organization then offered to the stores’
vendors as a seasonal thank-you gift. A local fire department conducted its
own Toys-for-Tots drive, delivered the goods to Knott’s Berry Farm and
then used the subsequent free admission to host a day-at-the-park for underprivileged
children.
Ocean Journey volunteers dove into the spirit of the season for the aquarium's young guests. Photo courtesy of Ocean Journey.
Soggy
St. Nick
The biggest challenge
in sending Santa scuba diving in a tank full of sharks is that he may show his
feminine side.
That has been the only drawback in what has become a “signature event”
for Ocean Journey in Denver, Colorado, said Kimberly Langston, the aquarium’s
public relations manager. Scuba-diving Santa has become a seasonal tradition
for the 3-year-old aquarium where a fully suited St. Nick submerges in the aquarium’s
Sea of Cortez habitat, featuring tropical fish (including the suitably shimmering
silver Mexican lookdowns), or in the Depths of the Pacific exhibit, featuring
sandbar, gray nurse, nurse and zebra sharks.
Playing Father Christmas are a few of the aquarium’s 100 volunteer divers
and, well, some of them are mothers. “His hat likes to float off, which
is an issue when he’s having his feminine side,” Langston said. Santa’s
beard can also cause some hairy moments for the divers, especially coupled with
the scuba regulator, so they keep the beard in place with a clear hair net.
His belt is actually a weight belt, and he wears flippers, of course, but otherwise
the aquarium does not order specialized Santa suits.
“It’s a normal, run-of-the-mill Santa Claus suit,” said Colby
Lorenz, diving safety officer. “We soak it to disinfect it and make sure
no dye comes out of it.” Diving as Santa also requires no additional training
or safety measures, Lorenz said, but it is a weightier task than the typical
scuba interactive programs because the Santa outfit is worn over a standard
dive suit. "It’s like you were trying to swim in your clothes. It’s
a big, baggy suit. In the water you don’t notice it, but when you get out
that suit weighs about 45 pounds.”
Unlike the divers in the aquarium’s regular scuba interactive programs,
Santa is not equipped with a microphone. “Santa can’t talk because
the beard and the regulator and talking don’t mix,” said Langston;
that plus a high-pitched Santa might confuse some children.
A scuba-diving Santa, on the other hand, not only doesn’t confuse the younger
patrons, he carries incredible awe-appeal. “We have been packed for Santa
dives,” Langston said. For the first dive this year November 29, the exhibit’s
pathway was “wall-to-wall children,” she said. “When he came
around the corner (inside the exhibit), you could hear the kids gasp.”
Santa waves to the children, interacts with a few through the glass, and scribbles
messages
on a handheld board like “Happy holidays,” and “Ho! Ho! Ho!”
and “Feliz Navidad.” “He’s bilingual when he needs to be,”
Langston said.
Scuba-diving Santa has earned the aquarium national coverage in magazines like
Good Housekeeping and this year has drawn the attention of a German press agency.
But the program carries no educational mission except, well, it’s Santa—environmentally
friendly, of course.
Give Kids The World floated this idea for its Rose Parade presence. Rendition courtesy of Give Kids The World.
Rose
to the occasion
Parades have proven effective marketing tools, and next to Macy’s Thanksgiving
Day Parade, no march has a greater following than the Tournament of Roses Parade
on New Years Day in Pasadena, California. Theme parks have taken advantage of
the exposure by entering floats in the past, and this year the industry’s
official charity, Give Kids The World, will float down Colorado Boulevard before
a million people along the parade route and the home audiences of three television
networks.
This year’s Rose parade was ideally suited for Give Kids The World because
of the parade’s 2003 theme: “Children’s Dreams, Wishes and Imagination.”
Tide (by Procter & Gamble) is the float’s presenting sponsor, covering
the cost of the float, designed by Fiesta Parade Floats, that will emulate in
80,000 roses the whimsical buildings along the Avenue of Angels in Give Kids
The World Village in Kissimmee, Florida. Riding the float will be GKTW President
Pamela Landwirth and founder Henri Landwirth, four children who have been guests
at the village, and Mayor Clayton, the village’s six-foot (1.8-meter) rabbit
mascot, plus a celebrity to be announced.
The float’s most significant element will be invisible to public view,
however: 56,000 of the Aqua Piks that hold roses on the float bear the signatures
of children who have visited the village this year.
With
a $6 donation,
you can help fund the float and receive an official GKTW Tournament of Roses
lapel pin, which can be ordered through the village’s web site, www.gktw.org.
New Arrivals
Dinosaurs truly are not shy around Give Kids The Worlds players. Photo courtesy of Give Kids The World.
It’s
a mini-golf course!
Give Kids The World in Kissimmee, Florida, announces the arrival of Marc’s
Dino-Putt Miniature Golf Course, December 3, 2002. Measurements: 3/4 acres,
seven holes, 11 dinosaurs (four animatronic), three fog effects, three water
effects, 250 palms, flowering trees and bamboo and 4,000 shrubs. Delivered by
Universal Orlando designers and employees and by Hensel Phelps Construction,
ITEC Productions, Johnson Brothers, Kern Studios, Oceaneering International,
PBS&J Landscape Architects and Planners, Safari Thatch, Valley Crest and
Wittek Golf Supply.
The cartoonish gallery of chattering compys dinosaurs around the first hole
gets play off to a whimsical start, but you know you are playing a truly special
golf course on the second hole. En route to making par, an ultrasaur helps you
by lifting your ball with his nose and punching it onto the green toward the
hole.
Universal Studios had long wanted to do something of its own at the Give Kids
The World Village, and when the charity suggested a miniature golf course Universal’s
creative team went to work. They didn’t hold back, either. The course cost
$2.2 million, and that was cheap. “If they ever created that kind of attraction
for an outside facility, it would be closer to $11 million,” said Kristin
Weissman, Give Kids The World’s manager of communications.
Each hole has a special effects trick in addition to the sound of roaring or
yapping dinosaurs whenever the ball makes it in the cup. Parasaurolophi blow
steam at golfers on Hole Three (and making the final putt will get you a squirt
of water from a member of the gallery). The fourth hole is in a cave, a winding
putting green through the sounds of roaring dinosaurs concluding with a putt
that triggers a volcanic eruption. On the fifth hole you aim for the stegosaur’s
mouth, and the ball passes through its spine to the tune of a marimba. The seventh
and final hole offers a “surprise:” make the putt, and a roaring Tyrannosaurus
rex rears up.
When the Universal designers came up with the idea of a dinosaur-themed course,
the GKTW staff were apprehensive. “We shocked a few people, especially
after they went through Jurassic Park” at Universal Orlando’s Islands
of Adventure, Universal Creative Project Manager Brad Goeb said. “The main
concern was to have the friendliest dinosaurs to interact with the kids.”
The designers achieved that by building realistic looking dinosaurs anatomically,
but using friendlier colors and smoothing out the skin and features. Oceaneering,
which built the dinosaurs at Jurassic Park also built Marc’s critters.
Another important design parameter was the length of individual holes, which
was more important than the total number of holes, Goeb said. “The holes
are longer than typical miniature golf courses so the whole family can really
get out there and be in one area and have more interaction, and it allows plenty
of room for wheelchairs.”
The course is named for the late Marc McConnell, whose visit to GKTW Village
in 1999 inspired him to battle back against his cancer and become a three-year
campaigner for organ donations (he died three days short of his 14th birthday).
His parents and five siblings were on hand the sunny morning of December 3 along
with pro golfers Scott Hoch and Mark McCumber to officially open the course
with a mini-golf challenge involving local television news personalities. The
event drew all the major television stations and print media outlets in sOrlando,
Weissman said, “which was pretty big for us.”
Sportscaster Gary Cohl won the challenge in what turned out to be a one-hole
shoot-out. “Because so many children were on the course, we just did one
hole,” Weissman said. That hole, Number 6, culminates with a nest of baby
pterodactyls chirping at the putters’ success. Everybody really wanted
to use that second hole for the competition, but the ultrasaur was too busy
helping other children win.
The Bahai Gardens and Mount Hermon ski slopes gave Israelis cause to reflect on all that's right with their land. Photo courtesy of Mini Israel.
It’s
a miniature park!
Mini Israel in Latrun, Israel, announces its arrival, December 1, 2002. Measurements:
60,000 square meters (15 acres), 300 models, 30,000 figures of which 3,000 are
animatronic, 700 vehicles, 20,000 miniature plants, one restaurant, one cafeteria,
two food kiosks, one gift shop, 200 employees.
Eiran Gazit and his long-suffering team of artisans and managers always figured
that if they could get Mini Israel built, people would come. They had aimed
for a Millennium eve opening, but a faulty tax assessment and succeeding bureaucratic
red top stalled that. They then aimed for spring 2001, but regional political
violence intervened. They then set their sites on fall of 2002.
Sure enough, when they opened on September 3, people came. Big time. About 25,000
people showed up over four days for a park with a capacity of just 4,000. The
subsequent traffic jams and security concerns prompted the police to close Mini
Israel down. The park waited another month before the police allowed it to reopen,
and then waited out the general national uncertainties arising from Issrael’s
tottering government.
Finally, the first week of Hanukkah, Mini Israel opened for real. The week saw
15,000 guests visit the park, 4,000 on each of the two sunny weekend days. “That
is what we strove for,” said Gazit, Mini Israel’s CEO. The park officially
is still in soft opening, with one section still unfinished. The official opening
ceremony will come in spring, if all goes well.
That’s a big if. A US$20 million investment, Mini Israel’s timing
is precarious. While the initial turnout is encouraging, and Gazit said the
park has secured group reservations well into next year, he is forecasting a
gate of about 300,000 for 2003. That figure is based solely on local tourism;
currently Israel is attracting no international visitors. “Once we get
international tourism, we’re expecting half a million.” On the other
hand, if there is a war in Iraq, local tourism will disappear, too, Gazit said.
At the least Mini Israel with its 1:25-scale depictions of various Holy Landmarks—historical
sites associated with three religions—has been a shaft of good news in
a troubled land. “The reaction has been amazing,” Gazit said. “People
understand we’re still under development, but we’re getting a big
‘Wow!’ The whole country was talking about us.”
Israeli television’s most popular show, the satire-laced “Only In
Israel” opened its season with a profile of the park. “We’re
on television every week,” Gazit said. “We’ve already been on
CNN, French television, Belgium television, Italian television. It’s creating
a lot of interest just because of the fact of the international political situation
and the security situation, yet a tourist attraction has opened. It couldn’t
happen anywhere else. It’s like a show of sanity in an insane place.”
Here’s wishing sanity prosperity. “We are praying for peace and hoping
that tourism comes back,” Gazit said. “It’s like a dream come
true, but now we have to return the investment.”
It’s
a dog kennel!
Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, announces the arrival of Doggywood, November
9, 2002. Measurements: 1,600 square feet (148 square meters), four cottages,
12 dog runs.
Dollywood didn’t raise much of a ruckus about its fancy new dog kennels,
the first ever at the theme park. “We had kind of a quiet opening,”
said Pete Owens, the park’s public relations manager. For six months before
Doggywood’s debut, Dollywood handed out letters describing the new kennels
to anybody who entered the park with an animal and sent invitations to season
pass holders known to own animals inviting them to try out the new facility
themed to look like little homes (Dollywood had allowed pets in the park as
long as they were on a lead, but “after studying that procedure we decided
it would be better for the animals if we had a facility to provide for them,”
Owens said).
Ruckus not necessary. Doggywood has been filled almost to capacity since it
opened. “We’re routinely very close to being full almost every day
of operation,” Owens said. That's during a time when only part of the park
is open for its annual holiday festival. “During peak season I would imagine
demand might be higher. There’s lots of room to expand it. We wanted to
do it in phases to see what the reaction was going to be. It’s been overwhelming,
so we may have to expand it before we open for next season.”
Dogs don’t just get a pretty place to lie about. The kennels have beds
and water. Staff inspect the animals when they are booked into the hound hotel,
and owners check in to feed their dogs and give them a little loving during
the course of a visit. “Patrons who have traditionally brought animals
to the park are ecstatic by the quality of the facility and staff,” Owens
said. “It just exceeded their expectations. We really pampered the pooches.”
Down
the line
Sometimes,
the getting of the stories in THE LOOP is more meaningful than the actual stories
we publish. This issue has four cases in point, and they happen to be from three
successive phone calls I had Wednesday morning and another yesterday.
First was with Sylvie Faujanet in Paris. I’ve had dinner
with this woman along with other European amusement industry leaders in a Barcelona,
Spain, cafe, and have long been impressed with her devotion to the industry
and her work in spreading the gospel of good training among young workers at
amusement facilities. While I felt the honor and privilege of talking with her
by phone through a translator, I was most taken with the persistent humility
emanating from her voice. This was a woman who had been accorded one of her
nation’s highest honors. Just by her very personality and bearing she teaches
us all so much.
Next on my list was Eiran Gazit, the CEO of Mini Israel.
This New Arrival is most apropos to this season, of course, as the three major
religions depicted in Mini Israel all celebrate major holidays this time of
year. However, for me reporting on this great event is bittersweet. I have closely
followed the history of Mini Israel’s development, and I know what was
SUPPOSED to happen. Back in 1999 when I first came to know Eiran, his Director
of Sales and Marketing Yoni Shapira, and his Technical Directors Koby Paz, they
were pushing ahead on a project that could have attracted up to a million visitors
during the Millennium. Furthermore, they were actively pursuing regional partnerships
utilizing their model-building expertise and an international association of
miniature parks, efforts that had them in close contact with professional counterparts
in neighboring countries.
That was when the region was basking in prospects for lasting peace. Bureaucratic
delays pushed Mini Israel’s construction back, and in the meantime the
peace process fell to pieces. Now the region is suffering as much upheaval as
it ever has. Yes, Mini Israel is a victim of the circumstances, but more importantly
so is Eiren’s goal for a network of purveyors delivering quality entertainment
to people throughout the region. On the phone he sounded weary, but he never
once let on that he was relinquishing hope. I’m guessing his mission is
simply put on hold.
Immediately after hanging up the phone with Eiran I was talking with Dollywood’s
Pete Owens in Tennessee. He was on his mobile phone as he
told me about the park’s new Doggywood kennels; many of my contacts are
out in the park so much that interviews on cell phones is not unusual. But then
Pete started interrupting our interview to give driving directions to Jill Thompson,
who also works in Dollywood’s public relations department. Pete then explained:
a former employee of Dollywood had recently broken her back, and Pete, Jill
and some of the crew who decorate the park for Christmas were on their way to
decorate her house. It would be a surprise for the woman.
Yesterday I interviewed by phone Universal Florida’s Brad
Goeb, the project manager for Give Kids The World’s new miniature golf
course. I was looking for matter-of-fact information on their clever designs
of the dinosaurs and special effects, but it quickly became obvious that Brad
was more than proud of his team’s work; he was enraptured with the whole
experience. Universal’s creative team has come to represent the highest
quality of entertainment experiences in the industry, and their first-ever miniature
golf course ranks right up there with anything they've done in Universal Studios
and Islands of Adventure. Yes, anything, Mr. Spider-man. Yet, the company will
get nil from the product in terms of income; only the satisfaction of contributing
such a fun experience to the families visiting Give Kids The World.
So this is the season of giving? In our industry, the season lasts 365 days
a year, in good times and bad.
Happy holidays, everybody. We’ll see you in 2003.
©2002, Minton Enterprises
LLC
All rights reserved
